1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method which perform a development process on a substrate including a semiconductor substrate, a glass substrate for a liquid crystal display device, a glass substrate for a photomask, a substrate for an optical disk, and the like. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improvement in procedure of the development process.
2. Description of the Background Art
A development processing apparatus for performing a development process on a resist film formed on a substrate subjected to an exposure process has been conventionally known. The conventional development processing apparatus executes the steps of: (1) allowing a puddle of developer (or developing solution) to remain on a substrate for a predetermined length of time to cause a development reaction to proceed; (2) performing a rinsing process for rinsing the developer adhering to the surface of the substrate away with deionized water; and (3) spinning off the deionized water adhering to the substrate to dry the substrate.
It is a known phenomenon that a dissolution product of the resist generated by the development reaction is not removed from the substrate, and such a resist residue becomes a development defect to cause a substrate processing failure in a subsequent step. An attempt has conventionally been made to solve the processing failure resulting from the development defect by sufficiently prolonging the rinsing processing time.
However, setting a long period of time for the rinsing process gives rise to a problem that the throughput of the entire apparatus decreases. There arises another problem that the dissolution product of the resist cannot be removed from the substrate even if the long rinsing time is set.